Quill and Quire

Kip Flynn, the pierced and dreadlocked protagonist of Sean Dixon's second novel for adults, makes her living selling roses, until she's put out of business after an altercation with Pat York, son of a real estate mogul. The book opens with Kip's boyfriend, Mani, being murdered by Pat's father in an act of revenge gone wrong. In shock, Kip accepts payment from the Yorks in exchange for her silence, but thereafter finds herself inextricably linked to them. This puts her at odds with her roommate, Nancy, a local activist campaigning against the York's efforts to redevelop Kensington Market.

With relentless intensity, the opening of Suzette Mayr's fourth novel traces the joys and despairs of 17-year-old Patrick Furey in the final days before his suicide. Although he dies in the first chapter, Furey remains the novel's fulcrum throughout the entire book. From the second chapter onward, Monoceros shifts between a wide range of characters who are affected by Furey's death, from those who knew him well to those for whom he was just another face in a crowded high school hallway.

(Starred review)

Phin Walsh, the nine-year-old narrator of Carla Gunn's debut novel, is the kind of kid who could only be described as 'sensitive.' Hours spent watching documentaries on the Green Channel have left him better informed than most adults about pollution, the plight of animals being robbed of their habitats, and the burden humans have placed on our rapidly decaying Earth. And he’s suffering for it.

From the Quill & Quire:

David McGimpsey is a kind of Canadian pop-poetry hero. While his previous collections have been well received, they have also been subject to criticism questioning the relevance of pop-culture verse.

The Milk Chicken Bomb

Andrew Wedderburn; $20.95 paper 978-1-55245-180-9, 280 pp., 5 x 8,

Coach House Books, April

Reviewed from bound galleys